The Arc of Love

by Aaron Ben-Ze'ev

  In open sexual marriages, the basic attitude is that marriages are essentially fine—the most acute problem is declining sexual desire. This is taken care of by adding new sexual partners. The basic attitude in polyamory is more radical. While it is agreed that declining sexual desire is a problem, it is assumed to be part of a larger problem associated with the assumption that one person can fulfill our entire romantic (and other significant) needs. Hence, we cannot be satisfied with “merely” adding one or a few sexual partners; we need to add (at least) another romantic partner, who can also satisfy the sexual needs. This is a more drastic change of monogamous marriages.

  The boundaries between open marriages and polyamory are blurred. In some polyamorous arrangements, one partner (or both) has more than one lover, and lovers are frequently replaced. There are also open sexual marriages in which the relation with the sexual partner lasts for months or even years. In light of the greater depth in polyamory, polyamorous people, and particularly polyamorous women, can feel rather insulted when they are seen as someone who is ready to sleep with every man who comes their way. As they see it, they only sleep with men they fall in love with—although it seems that they fall in love faster as they allow themselves to fall in love in circumstances that others would not. Moreover, since secondary relations require fewer deeds and commitments than primary ones, more people are suitable as secondary partners. Furthermore, polyamorous women usually have a more positive attitude toward sex.

  Polyamory and Complexity

  My lover has provided me with a profound love and unique sexual satisfaction that I have never experienced before. I hope, however, that my loving relations with my husband, with whom I raise our two children, will continue to flourish for many years.

  A POLYAMOROUS MARRIED WOMAN

  I don’t want to own her, but I can’t let her have it both ways. Three is one too many of us, she leaves with me or stays with him.

  RUPERT HOLMES

  I have emphasized the importance of complexity for the endurance and profundity of romantic relationships. Polyamory is more complex than monogamy in the senses we have discussed: diversity, ambivalence, and behavioral complexity. Thus, having multiple romantic relationships with different people yields more emotions (emodiversity), leads to a greater likelihood of emotional conflict stemming from divergent interests (ambivalence), and requires extensive practical strategies (behavioral complexity).7

  It seems that instead of working hard to defuse, reduce, or redirect romantic attitudes and sexual desire for multiple people, as is the case in a monogamous framework, polyamorous people look to accommodate these attitudes and desires within their relationships. Polyamory can be perceived as complementing traditional romantic relationships, using a kind of outsourcing for some of your spouse’s needs. However, it rejects the common romantic ideal that one person can fulfill all your romantic needs.

  Polyamory replaces a flat notion of (predominantly sexual) fidelity with complex notions of emotional openness, sincerity, and explicitness as a romantic norm, and the ongoing manifestations of tenderness. Whereas monogamous relationships often resemble the rigid forms of an implicit contract, which are subsequently defended against encroaching sexual or romantic attitudes, polyamorous relationships can be understood as ongoing processes of negotiation and renegotiation aimed at embracing such feelings.

  A prevailing way of dealing with romantic complexity in polyamory is indeed adopting the primary-secondary model. The difference between primary and secondary relationships refers to issues such as time spent together, physical cohabitation, child rearing, and finance. The secondary relation, which is more novel, often enjoys greater romantic intensity. The primary partner has more rights and obligations than those of the secondary one in these aspects—this is mainly due to the connection of the primary partner to the children. In a sense, the primary partner has more shares in the business. The secondary partner, who can be a primary partner in another relation, has the right to be treated with respect and attentiveness, though when conflicts arise, the primary partner usually has first priority, yet not an absolute one. Thus, it is possible that over time the secondary relation would evolve into a primary (or co-primary) form, and sometimes the primary-secondary is not present, or at least is unclear.

  Another type of relation can be added: a tertiary type referring to mere sexual partners, such as one-night stands. The commitments and rights of such sexual partners are very minor, if they exist at all, and hence in some cases of polyamory one often does not have to report about them to one’s primary or secondary partners. A polyamorous married woman said that she did not have a tertiary lover for almost a year—indicating thereby that the dry season is indeed long.

  Polyamorous relationships enhance the personal capacities and social structures required to productively confront emotional complexity. This fact, coupled with the advantages of polyamorous framework concerning romantic intensity, ensures that polyamory is well placed to cope better with hedonic adaptation over time. However, while one might agree that polyamorous people can manage the emotional complexity of their lifestyle in a way that enables them to maintain romantic intensity, can such relationships be romantically profound?

  Spreading Love Too Thin or Expanding the Loving Heart

  Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness is never reduced by being shared.

  BUDDHA

  The heart is not like a box that gets filled up; it expands in size the more you love.

  SAMANTHA, in the movie Her

  Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I’m tired.

  MAE WEST

  A major criticism of polyamory is that of spreading love too thin. In reply, one might compare love to happiness, which, as Buddha said, “is never reduced by being shared.” In this sense, the heart can expand when you love more. Is spreading love around like spreading limited butter or like expanding happiness? The first option assumes a resources competition, or a contrast model, which essentially involves a zero-sum game, whereas the second option presupposes an expanding, additive resources model. It seems that both options have a valid point.

  Does loving two (or more) people necessarily mean loving each of them “more thinly”? This would be the case, if love, like butter, is fixed in quantity—then, spreading your love between two lovers would inevitably reduce the amount each of them gets. Love requires lots of investment: of time, effort, financial resources, and emotional availability. All of these are limited, and some, such as time, are also fixed in quantity. In this sense, love is like butter; you cannot spread it too thin and expect to gain romantic profundity, which requires for its development time and other limited resources. Indeed, when thinking about loving two people at the same time, we typically assume shallowness: spreading your love over two lovers should result in less love to each. In this situation, the difficulty is not that we have too little butter or too little love, but that we have too much bread or too many lovers.

  Here’s where things get interesting. Love is not an entity with a fixed energy but a capacity that, when used, generates increasingly positive energy—in the sense of “using it or losing it.” Hence, there is no point asking someone (as various love songs do) to save her love for the asking person by not using it. Although we may speak about a certain “saturation” of sexual desire, in the sense that we just do not want to (and actually cannot) have sex now, we can hardly speak about a “saturation” of love, in the sense that we cannot love now.

  The main way to deal with the idea of decreasing love is to argue that unlike butter, romantic energy is not fixed in quantity but has the potential to grow. This is the case of shared happiness—a single candle can light thousands of wicks.

  A few basic psychological capacities might be involved in expanding the heart: (1) the broadening capacity of positive emotions, (2) the expanding nature of the self, and (3) the ability to be generous.

/>   In her influential broaden-and-build theory, Barbara Fredrickson claims that positive emotions such as happiness and love broaden people’s momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual strengths to social and psychological capabilities. Fredrickson further argues that positive emotions do not merely signal flourishing; they also produce flourishing. Positive emotions are valuable not just as ends in themselves but also as a means to enhance psychological growth and improve our well-being over time.8

  Another capacity facilitating the growth of the heart is self-expansion. The “self-expansion model” holds that we are hard-wired to expand ourselves through relationships with other people. This is because relationships enable us to incorporate the resources and perspectives of others within ourselves. Over time, and because of their interpersonal relationships, people can “expand” by internalizing perspectives and resources that were previously unavailable to them.9

  Both the broadening capacity of positive emotions and the expanding nature of the self are highly relevant for understanding how polyamory provides a context in which one’s heart can expand by participating in a few loving relations. Polyamory is a form of romantic life that is maximally self-expansive.

  One can further claims that the expanded nature of love may be due to the inclusive manner of certain romantic activities. Not all meaningful romantic activities should be done in the intimacy of merely two people; some, such as talking and walking, can be done with more than one person, thereby expanding the impact of such activities to other people.

  Another capacity that expands our heart is that of generosity. Loving two people can be described as a kind of romantic generosity, which, like other types of generosity, increases the flourishing of the person. Generosity is an essential positive framework for prosperous marital relationships. Extending romantic generosity from one person to two people can in principle further enhance one’s good feelings while expanding the heart.

  To sum up, regarding a central criticism against polyamory—namely, the charge that it spreads love too thin—it seems that, in many circumstances, this charge is unfounded. This does not imply that polyamory is unequivocally suitable for all; it has, of course, its own difficulties.

  The Quality of Polyamorous Relationships

  I reserve the right to love many different people at once, and to change my prince often.

  ANAÏS NIN

  Polyamory is worse than open sexual relations. It is a pure greed—a permission to look for a better spouse.

  A MARRIED WOMAN HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH A MARRIED MAN

  Does polyamory increase the quality of the romantic relation? It is hard to measure the extent and depth of romantic love as it is determined by various factors, such as romantic intensity, romantic profundity, and length of relationship. I have called the combination of these factors “romantic robustness.” Our question is whether polyamory enhances romantic robustness.

  Loving two people at the same time clearly increases overall romantic intensity, which is highly dependent on change and novelty. The greater intensity, which is most evident when meeting a new partner, is described as the “new relationship energy” stage. This stage involves a kind of infatuation with the new partner, and everything seems wonderful, as if the world is opening for them. People feel more creative and energized about their projects and personal relationships.10

  However, such additional new energy is divided unevenly: the new partner receives the lion’s share of the individual’s sexual energy in a way that would even decrease the amount the current partner has received so far. Although we have more butter, the current partner may well get less of it. Moreover, as in the case of infatuation, the duration of the stage of new relationship energy is relatively brief, after which the issue of limited romantic energy becomes even more acute.

  The relationship between polyamory and romantic profundity is multifaceted, mainly because profound love requires investing a lot of quality time. Whereas time decreases emotional intensity, time enhances emotional profundity. Accordingly, it is natural to assume that having a few romantic partners considerably reduces the quality time available for each. Nonetheless, polyamory increases complexity, which underlies romantic profundity. Living in complex circumstances requires a profound understanding of the other partners. Hence, it would be a mistake to think of polyamory and emotional profundity as mutually exclusive. Polyamorous relationships can present people with ongoing opportunities for self-expansion through romantic engagement with more than one person. However, sometimes such quantitative expansion runs the risk of reducing the quality of the present relation.

  Empirical studies confirm the above considerations. Monogamous people reported slightly lower sexual satisfaction and lower orgasm rates than those who are in consensual nonmonogamy. This is true concerning all types of such nonmonogamy: polyamory, swinging, and open sexual relations. Swingers, in particular, reported better and more frequent sex than did monogamous people, and the difference here is not minor, but considerable. Monogamous people did not appear to be dissatisfied with their sexual relationships—they just had slightly lower levels of sexual satisfaction. To be on the safe side, we may say that there is no substantial empirical evidence for a significant difference between the various groups. It seems that relationship structure, in itself, is not a powerful predictor of psychological and relational well-being. It appears that consensual nonmonogamy is not significantly of a greater or lesser quality than monogamy.11

  Personal freedom seems to be the jewel in the crown of polyamory, as polyamorous people can freely choose adding another partner(s) to enlarge and spice up their dull romantic life. This freedom, however, comes with a price tag: limiting our freedom in managing our primary and secondary relationships, which are now part of a greater net that has its own restrictions. Such restrictions mainly concern taking account of the secondary partners, which were not chosen by you. Similarly, when you live in a commune, the commune determines some aspects of your life. The trade-off here is between greater romantic freedom and lesser freedom in running your life, which becomes less private. When the romantic connection is of lesser depth—for example, when it is limited to the sexual domain, as in the case of open sexual marriages—the restrictions on one’s personal life hardly exist.

  The issue of privacy is also of some concern in polyamorous relationships, where openness and sincerity are very significant. The standard view often requires complete sharing and openness, leaving little personal space for privacy. A more sensible attitude taken by polyamorous people sees the value of privacy, and complete sharing and openness is not required, especially when it may hurt one of the lovers. Thus, one does not have to report all the details of one’s sexual interactions with other partners. Similarly, one does not have to tell about all of one’s fights with other partners—unless such fights would hurt the other relationships as well. Some may also withhold the identity of a new lover, though revealing, for example, that this person is not someone their primary partner knows. Some would not even report brief sexual encounters, such as one-night stands. As one married polyamorous woman said, “These experiences are brief and insignificant to me; hence, there is no reason for disturbing my husband concerning them.”

  The Length of Polyamorous Relationships

  My fantasy is to have five lovers. However, I do not think that my husband will agree, and anyway, I will not have time for having them all. I believe that three is the limit.

  A POLYAMOROUS MARRIED WOMAN

  We have seen that the quality of polyamorous relationships is similar to, and sometimes even slightly higher than, that of monogamous relationships. Since relation satisfaction is associated with longer relationship longevity, it would be plausible to assume that polyamorous relationships will endure at least as long as monogamous ones. Is this indeed the case?

  We should distinguish between the length of primary polyamorous relati
onships and the length of secondary ones. It is clear that the longevity of the secondary type is significantly briefer than the average longevity of monogamous relationships, as well as that of the primary polyamorous relation.

  Polyamorous people testify that longevity is of lesser value to them than the relation quality. This somewhat negative attitude toward longevity is expressed in various attitudes of polyamorous people, like expecting the relation to end at some point in the future, living for the moment, taking breakups easily, and looking around for replacements. Such attitudes can easily become self-fulfilling prophecies. If indeed less value is placed on longevity, then the members of the relationship are going to be less inclined to stay in a relationship that is not satisfying.12

  Polyamorous relations include further features that are negatively associated with enduring relationships. Two such features are having an existential dependency on someone you have not chosen (such as the partners of your primary and secondary partners) and the increased possibility of feeling that you are second-best.13 Other problems include managing the great intensity associated with a new partner; the potential pitfalls of “choice fatigue” when faced with many potential partners; the dangers of “compassion fatigue” in a life with competing demands; social stigma; complications in family life; reduced privacy; and resisting the allure of unworkable polyamorous ideals, such as abolishing envy and jealousy.14 It seems, indeed, that on average the longevity of poly relationships is briefer.

  The briefer temporal dimension of a secondary relationship can be measured not merely by the period the two are dating (usually assessed in terms of years), but also by the frequency and length of their actual face-to-face meetings. Thus, it is customary to restrict the number and length of the meetings, to prohibit overnight or weekend meetings, and to require that they take place at the house of a primary relationship. Although such restrictions are stricter at the beginning of the secondary relationships, they still exist later on as well.